A Little R&R: Reunion Reimagined

25Jul

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This post is written by Mallory Wood, at Sizzler, iModules User Conference.

The University of Notre Dame was founded in 1842. There are roughly 12,000 students (undergraduate and graduate) total and 140,000+ alumni around the globe. ND has partnered with iModules for 6 years and uses iModules for alumni engagement.

Reunion Circa 2011-2015

3,500 to 4,000 attendees on average

Celebration of 5 year milestones

Annual, held in June, 3-day experience

Form opens in January for registration

Closes 7-10 days prior to Reunion

Planned days with iModules, form, reports, and testing!

iModules Form used for Reunion 2015

Package Details:

Weekend options for housing on campus, and special events like the 50-year club

Reunion details are broken out by package (determines what price you pay and which days you see), class (what price you pay and dinner options), by day, by adult, and child.

Registrants see all of the options that are available, even ones that aren’t particularly relevant to the alumnus.

However, the form took a long time to fill out and was many pages long. It needed to be streamlined and have fewer steps. Registrants didn’t need to see everything.

Refreshed iModules Form for Reunion 2016

Breadcrumbs are used to be helpful to registrants and show them how far they are in the sign-up process.

Personal information and College Days are nested together. Much of this information is pre-populated because registrants need to log in first.

Personal information includes: first name, maiden name, last name, suffix and preferred first name for name tag, address information, dietary restrictions, and special needs.

College days asked what resident hall you lived in, the year you graduated, and your degree.

In the updated form you only see the reunion packages that are relevant to you instead of the entire list. ND also now offers single tickets. Both are displayed in a visually appealing checklist.

Registrants select the days that they’ll attend Reunion. This drives the smart form and the options that an alumnus sees later in the form. They can also select if they’re interested in a package and if they’d like to stay on campus.

Package options are displayed later in the form but a registrant doesn’t have to sort through a list of irrelevant choices to find their class event. The form is smart and only displays the package options available to the registrant based on the information they’ve already supplied.

On-Campus Housing options are also “smart” and based on previous information supplied.

ND also asked alumni: What are you looking forward to most? This is great data to collect to understand why alum come back to campus for Reunion.

ND presents apparel options as an add-on at the end of the form process.

ND created an error page that triggered when a registrant indicates they’re coming to Reunion but not any of the events.

ND also created a recap page that verifies the alum’s choices for accommodations, packages, and other tickets.

What did they learn?

Single Tickets could sign up without purchasing anything.

About one week beforehand people were still making changes to their registration form. This caused a bit of confusion on the back end.

Further refine by:

Consider single tickets vs. packages — same form?

Reduce number of activities even more

Consider class-specific packages/activities

Presenters: Erin Thornton of The University of Notre Dame and Sabrina Goldman of iModules

Article Author

Mallory Willsea brings more than a decade of marketing, digital, and enrollment marketing experience to Higher Ed Live and mStoner. Mallory serves as the main point of contact for Higher Ed Live sponsors. As head of marketing and sales for mStoner, Mallory develops the firm's marketing strategy and works with potential clients to identify right-fit solutions.